Protecting Me
by sakuyavalentine
Summary: One-shot. Harry. Heather.


**Protecting Me**.

"No matter what  
you hold me tight  
with all you're might  
and you will never let me go."

- Aly and Aj – _Protecting Me_

.

He saw her off that morning, after a breakfast of sugary cereal and cold milk. It wasn't much – then again, the salary of a freelance columnist wasn't much to live on – but it was enough.

She woke that morning and dressed in a sleeveless orange turtleneck, white down vest and a green, denim skirt he thought was just a little too short. But he repressed his comment, knowing it would result in nothing but an eye roll and comment about his age.

"God, Dad," was her likely response, "I'm not like those others girls. You know that."

And he did. She was a good kid, almost uncannily good. She had a sharp tongue, and was sent to the office a number of times during her middle and high school years for talking back to her teachers, and had few – if any; he never saw them – friends, but she had a good heart.

She kept up with her school work and held herself with respect. And though she was a teenager, she'd skipped the rebellious and party-hard phases he overheard other parents in their block complain about. He suspected there was a time when she'd taken up smoking, though he'd never questioned her about it and after a year or so, the stench from her clothes disappeared all together.

"I don't need that stuff," she'd said when he questioned her about it back when she turned fifteen. "I have you."

I wasn't sure what to think about that. Perhaps it was to be expected. As much as he wanted her to grow and find a good man to spend her life with, she just wasn't the type. He'd never married or dated after his wife passed twenty-one years ago, so he'd been her sole provider. And that was just Heather. Alessa had never known her father and spent the majority of her life surrounded by women. Perhaps the lack of "proper" family structure led her to believe she didn't need a spouse to be content. Or perhaps Alessa had given up on such ideals as love and acceptance and was happy enough being by herself.

He thought about Alessa from time to time, watching Heather grow, wondering how much of the vengeful child dwelled within her psyche and how much was his darling Cheryl. So far, Cheryl's kindness won out.

She was trusted among the neighbours, often spending hours on Sunday evenings arranging baby-sitting jobs and housework simply so she could fit everything in and still get enough sleep to retain her sanity. And being a single parent, it was a pleasure to have her so readily cook three times a week and keep up around the apartment without expecting pay.

Which wasn't to say he didn't reward her. That morning, as she stepped into her leather riding boots, he handed her a one-hundred dollar bill, which she tucked safely in the interior pouch of her vest, and reminded her not to spend it all in one place, to which he received that eye roll and age remark he'd been trying to avoid.

"Bye Dad," she said, hiding a giggle, and stepped into the hall.

"Bye. And could you pick up some air freshener on your way home? The bathroom hamper is starting to smell a little funky."

"Sure thing." She waved and made her way down the hall and around the corner. He closed the door behind her and looked around the apartment, expelling a long, deep breath.

The next few hours were spent cleaning the breakfast dishes, stacking the dry ones in the cupboards in the proper order and wiping down the table. Afterwards, he took at seat at the kitchen table, opening the appropriate files and staring at his unfinished article on psychological development of patients with a history of violence – immediately following his return from Silent Hill, he'd gone to therapy to cope with the remnants of terror and since developed a fascination with psychology. He took courses, interviewed psychologists and psychoanalysts and read hundreds of books.

But he'd suffered from Writer's Block for weeks now and by mid afternoon, it appeared today was no better, so he rose from the chair and started wandering about. A look in his closet told him he was out of clean clothes and gathering everything in a basket, made his way down the hall to the laundry room located beside the main entrance.

As he dropped a handful of quarters into the machine and turned the dial, a sensation of cold dread swelled in his chest. He glanced around, listening intently over the rumble of the washer. The lack of windows created a dreary darkness in the halls, interrupted only by the faint glow of yellow-orange lamps hanging on the walls.

There was nothing, only the distant applause of someone's television program. Harry talked himself into relaxation. The last seventeen years had been difficult; between raising Heather, holding down a job, and keeping one eye open for the Order while trying – and failing – to forget his experiences in Silent Hill, he'd aged faster and only on rare occasions slept through the night uninterrupted. Last week he'd very nearly had a heart attack when a bird flew into the back door.

Harry checked his watch. It would take another thirty minutes for the clothes to finish, and with no purpose just standing around waiting, he retrieved the mail from the box in the lobby. He left the machines unattended and returned to the apartment, taking care to lock it behind him – something he started to do after he and Heather moved from Portland.

The phone rang once the chain was in place, and he jumped, chiding himself immediately afterwards. He picked up the receiver and slowly brought it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey Dad. It's me. Sorry I didn't call sooner," came Heather's voice on the other end with a slight laugh. He could hear people moving in the background and echoing music interrupted by an announcement for someone to meet their mother at the Customer Service desk.

"Hey. It's all right." He sandwiched the receiver between his ear and shoulder and started thumbing through the envelopes. Most were mail, a few were coupons for local restaurants and there was a flier directed at cosmetics advertising. She sounded strange. "Are you all right, sweetie? You sound pretty tired."

"Yeah, I guess I was." She paused, not wanting to tell him about her nightmare. It wasn't that important, even though it left her pretty rattled. "Anyway, I'm coming home now." Then. "Oh! I didn't get that thing you asked me to."

He shrugged it off. "It's all right. I'll get some myself the next time I'm at the store. But if you go into the bathroom and smell something weird, remember it was you who forgot."

"Okay." She sounded like she was ready to go.

"Be careful," he cautioned, like he always did.

"Okay I will."

He smiled, holding the phone close. "I love you, Heather."

At that, her tone appeared to lift. "I love you too Dad."

As he set the phone back on the cradle, that eerie feeling returned and suddenly he wished he hadn't let her leave that morning. He approached the back door and pulled the curtains aside; it was getting awfully dark, and it wasn't even five. His pulse quickened, remembering the last time this happened.

From the corner of his peripheral vision, something darted between the shadows. He followed it with his gaze, but was too late; whatever it had been was gone now. Had it been something? Or his imagination?

Releasing the curtains, he turned away and brought the mail into the kitchen, throwing away the fliers and tearing open the bills with his thumb. When he'd scanned them all, he opened the fridge, examining containers of mashed potatoes, soggy coleslaw and a half-eaten sandwich that appeared to be growing a dull green fuzz. Behind the mustard, he found spaghetti sauce and a few meatballs and heated it in the microwave while cooking noodles in a pot of hot water. Heather wasn't a fan of leftovers, but her tone was one he didn't want to strain and he wasn't in the mood to cook anything fancy.

"Harold Mason."

He turned so quickly, his elbow knocked the handle of the pot, sending soft noodles and steaming water all over the floor. A short distance away stood a tall, pale woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in black robes. He noticed immediately that she was barefooted and had shaved her eyebrows. There was something dreadfully familiar about her.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "How did you get in here?"

She shook her head, avoiding a direct response. "We've been looking for you, Harold Mason."

"You have me confused with someone else," he stated, listening to his heart in his ears. "I don't know anyone named Mason. Morris is my – "

"Please don't waste my time," she droned. "You have a talent for being elusive, but you cannot hide her forever. Alessa's destiny is to become the mother of God!"

Slowly, he pulled open the knife drawer. Obviously this woman knew more than he was comfortable with, and there was no sense pretending. Immediately, the drawer closed again, nearly crushing the bones in his fingers. His head shot up, wondering if it was the woman and if so, how she did that. She moved her finger from side to side, as if reprimanding a child. "Seventeen years ago, you stole something from us. You stole our god."

He glanced at the bedroom door at the far end of the hall. The pale woman was standing between them, but if he could run by, he kept a gun in the drawer beside his bed. "Look, I've never given a damn about you or your town's crazy religious cult. All I've ever cared about is my daughter."

"Which puts you in an awkward position," the woman continued. "Vengeance aside, God needs to know hatred and pain if she is to create a Paradise of mercy and joy. And what more appropriate way than through her mother?"

Harry's back became rigid and his hands balled into fists. He lunged at the woman, overcome by paternal instinct. He'd killed before – plenty of times – and he could do so again. "If you touch a hair on Heather's head, I swear I will tear you – Ah!" A gasp burst from his lips like air from a popped balloon.

His abdomen burned and he glanced down, staring at the long, rusty edge of what appeared to be a sort of tonfa-like blade. He followed the weapon up the bloody rubber gloves and twitching, rippling muscled arms of an enormous creature of human stature wearing butcher's garb and a burlap sack tied with a noose over its head.

"You have raised Alessa with love and affection. As such, she is weak, but she loves you – Harold Mason – more than anyone else. If you were to die...How angry would she be?" The woman's blue lips pulled into a Cheshire-cat smile. "All the vengeance and rage she once felt will come flowing back into her, and into God."

Under the weight of his body, Harry's knees collapsed and his mind was awhirl. The terror of Silent Hill had followed them once again, only this time, he was powerless. How could he have been so naive?

He was helpless as the enormous creature dragged him by the ankle across the apartment and into the easy chair in front of the television before he and the woman left the same way they'd entered. The smell of blood was overwhelming and Harry's head rolled to the side. The phone seemed so far away, but if he could call Heather...If he could warn her...

His body was unyielding. His fingers barely twitched, his eyes, barely secure in his head. Everything was fading into a cold, lonely darkness.

"Harry..." whispered a melodic voice. It sounded familiar somehow. "It's all right. It's close to her heart."

The locket of Aglaophostis he'd taken from Kaufmann's office! Regardless of what the woman and her cult attempted, Cheryl...his little girl, was going to be all right. Tears touched his eyes – though for Heather, for himself or for the voice that called him, he did not know – and his lips, dry and cracked, moved ever so slightly. "Darling..."

He was warm, the voice comforting like a pleasant memory of a time long gone...when he was happy.

"Sleep now, Harry. The nightmare's over."

.

**Disclaimer: **All characters and events of this fic belong to Konami and all respected _Silent Hill _developers.

**Author's Notes: **I absolutely adore Harry's relationship with his daughter(s). He's such a fighter I never believed he'd go down without a fight, so the Missionary surprising him while trying to protect Heather from Claudia seemed the best option.


End file.
